Hardly ever do Nigerian journalists get justice for assaults
suffered in the line of duty. But things may be set to change with the case of Benedict Uwalaka, a
photojournalist with Leadership
Newspapers, who on August 9 was brutally assaulted
at a government hospital in Lagos State. The first step toward justice came 22
days later, when Bayo Ogunsola, one of the assailants identified by Uwalaka,
was arraigned
in court on August 31 on a two-count charge of assault and destruction of the
journalist's camera. Ogunsola pleaded not guilty on both counts.

A private university in Liberia has suspended
a journalist studying there for publishing a newspaper story critical of the institution's
management.

On May 8, private Cuttington University in Suacoco in central Liberia suspended Selma Lomax, a reporter with independent newspaper FrontPage Africa and a third-year student in agriculture at the institution, for four months over an April 26 story analyzing the financial struggles of the university. FrontPage Africa had previously reported on constraints plaguing the university since its founder and leading donor, the Episcopal Church of the United States, withdrew a major portion of funding. Based on interviews with university employees, Lomax's story discussed controversy over university President Henrique Tokpa, who has been accused of mismanagement and nepotism.

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On World Press Freedom Day last week,
Nigeria's Information Minister, Labaran Maku, publicly asserted that the
country's media "is one of the freest in the universe." On paper, Nigeria's
1999 Constitution
guarantees the freedom of the press to "uphold...the responsibility and
accountability of the government to the people." But seven journalists who
attempted to put this principle to practice on World Press Freedom Day
experienced a different reality -- one all too common for independent
journalists working in Africa's most populated nation.

To commemorate World Press Freedom Day on
May 3, CPJ published a list of the 10
most censored countries, citing Equatorial
Guinea as the fifth worst offender. In response, the Minister of
Information and government spokesperson, Jerónimo Osa Osa Ecoro, dismissed the
analysis of the country's press situation as biased.

"We are going to communicate with those international media organizations who are out to destroy the image of the country," Ecoro told me last week. "They have a biased opinion of the situation in the country."

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Liberian journalist Mae Azango's
courageous reporting on female genital mutilation, which made her the target of
threats and ignited international controversy, has forced her government to
finally take a public position on the dangerous ritual. For the first time, Liberian
officials have declared they want to stop female genital mutilation, a
traditional practice passed down for generations. Involving the total or
partial removal of the clitoris, the ritual is practiced by the Sande secret women's
society. As
many as two out of every three Liberian girls in ten out of
Liberia's 16 tribes are subjected to the practice, according to news accounts.

Last week, a judge in Senegal convicted a
man of assaulting three journalists outside their newspaper's office in the
capital Dakar last month. The attack was not related to journalism, but the
quick arrest and prosecution of the perpetrator serves as an instructive
contrast between the handling of an ordinary crime and the handling of abuses
against journalists in the line of duty - cases which are usually politicized, stalled,
or both.

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Good news for Gambia's beleaguered independent press has been rare
during President Yahya Jammeh's 17-year rule, but last week brought three potentially
positive developments. It's unclear whether they mark a real change in the
status quo, but they may at least increase the resolve of advocacy groups to
seek improvements.